Signed in February 2025
* In building up a team, you, at times, also go into a risk mode, where you need to see each and every player playing in international games
* I can safely say now I have players who can be part of the squad for our next assignments—Pasuwa on Flames’ COSAFA Cup 2025 performance
* Since the COSAFA Cup is a developmental competition, Pasuwa’s target is to aim at winning it in the next two years while no targets were set for African Nations Championship (CHAN)
Analysis by Duncan Mlanjira
The COSAFA Cup 2025 was a huge disappointment as the Flames played out three group matches in which they just came out with a single point and without scoring any goal — but just conceding two in the 0-1 losses each to Lesotho and Angola.
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Fans expected much from the domestic league players having performed extremely well against Comoros in the African Nations Championship (CHAN) 2025 second round of qualifiers in which they two 4-0 on aggregate (2-0 each in two legs).
They went on to win 1-0 against South Africa at home in the first leg of the final round of qualifying but lost 0-2 away after Bafana Bafana beefed up their squad with players of that country’s top clubs, who had been left out for the first leg due to club engagements.
Head coach, Kalisto Pasuwa was first engaged as interim after Football Association of Malawi (FAM) fired Patrick Mabedi due to the Flames’ miserable performance in the Africa Cup of Nations (AfCON) Morocco 2025 for being eliminated with two games in hand.
Under Mabedi, the Flames failed to register a single win in the AfCON 2025 qualifiers — eliminated following 2-3 loss to Burundi; 1-3 to Burkina Faso and back-to-back 0-4 and 0-1 losses against Senegal away and at home turf, Bingu National Stadium respectively.
And in FIFA World Cup 2026™ qualifiers, the Flames managed just two wins off Liberia and São Tomé e Principe and losing to Tunisia and Equatorial Guinea.
When Pasuwa took over in the interim, along with Peter Mponda and Prichard Mwansa as 1st and 2nd assistant coaches respectively, the team’s miserable fortunes turned around in the two remaining ceremonial AfCON Morocco 2025 qualifiers in which he guided them to a 0-0 draw with Burundi away and winning 3-0 against Burkina Faso at home.
When he was given the permanent contract, everyone was satisfied — also on the strength that the Zimbabwean performed extremely well with Nyasa Big Bullets, clinching many cups in his six seasons and winning the elite TNM Super League titles back-to-back for five seasons.
The two wins against Comoros in the CHAN qualifiers — with domestic league players — gave fans even more confidence on the coach’s tactics to overcome South Africa and he delivered at home but stumbled away.
The next best thing was to try a shot at the COSAFA Cup title the Flames have never won since its inception in 1997 but only to disappoint again — with fans now questioning Pasuwa’s tactics in South Africa.
He left out some players who had the exposure against Comoros and South Africa opting to try new faces and give other regular call-up players the chance to get the international experience — only to come back without a single goal and with just a single point off the 0-0 draw against Namibia.
All the while in South Africa, Pasuwa used Mponda to talk to the FAM Media that accompanied the team and upon their return, the head coach told the media on Thursday that he is building a team that will qualify for AfCON 2027.
Some sceptical fans questioned this assertion of building a team — a song they have heard countless times — but it should be noted that this is the top priority which FAM mandated in him in his contract signed in February 2025.
“As coaches, we are very professional enough,” he said. “In building up a team, you, at times, also go into a risk mode, where you need to see each and every player playing in international games.
“And also one area which I thought we should share [is that] when we are building a team, we look also on edge. Yes, we know outside this, we might need instant results of saying, ‘maybe if you take an experienced player, we can get a result’.”
On dropping some senior players for the COSAFA Cup 2025, Pasuwa said: “We need to take into mind to say we need youngsters who can be the next future players of our national team.
“And I thought maybe we had most of them in the CHAN squad who played well, [who were] very positive in terms of the way they were playing out of position and also in position and playing structured football.
“Mostly, if you saw, maybe in our last games, we were playing well at times but we end up conceding. And maybe it was also a surprise to see some of the guys, like Alick Lungu, not the part of the squad that we took, and we also had Lloyd not part of it.
“People should understand that Lungu and Aaron were already spotted, and these are our regulars on our senior team,” he emphasised.
On his approach at the COSAFA and overall analysis of his team’s performance, Pasuwa said they went to compete, but “unfortunately, we couldn’t win the games or even to score a goal — but remember, we said we are trying to build a team and I can safely say now I have players who can be part of the squad for our next assignments.
“Those are some of the positives, and also the experience that I saw in these guys playing — remember, we played against solid teams to an extent that other coaches, especially Angola’s, approached me, asking [if some of my] players play in Europe, but these are only domestic league players.
“So it’s the positives [from the COSAFA] in terms of how these boys faired — It’s only, maybe, we didn’t get goals. You saw how these guys have been playing very well. It’s only we are conceding from corner kicks, we are conceding from free kicks. So we need to work on that going forward.”
When Pasuwa gave the Flames a new breath of life against Burundi and Burkina Faso he earned the permanent contract and when he was being unveiled, FAM president Fleetwood Haiya alluded that the Zimbabwean can make Malawi a dominant side in international football.
”We all know what Pasuwa has achieved (locally and internationally), and it cannot be disputed that he has been one of the best performers in our football,” he was quoted as saying by Fam.mw in February.
“As FAM, we followed our processes and procedures and after consultations and recommendations from our stakeholders, we have settled for Pasuwa. It was not a difficult choice for Pasuwa considering that we have tested him in the previous games when he was a caretaker.“
The FAM boss added that while it is a must for Pasuwa to lead the Flames to the AfCON Uganda & Tanzania 2027 as his number one target, his other mission was to build a very competitive squad through the remaining remaining six matches of the FIFA World Cup 2026™ qualifiers — to win at least three games.
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Haiya added that since the COSAFA Cup is a developmental competition, Pasuwa should aim at winning it in the next two years while no targets were set for CHAN, which is only for domestic league-based players.
On his part, Pasuwa said in February that his coaching philosophy “is built on principles of teamwork, discipline and hard work” and that he believes by working together, “we can achieve greatness”.
“My goal is to create a strong team and culture that is built on trust and respect and communication. In the short term, our goal is to do well like the president said in the upcoming tournaments like CHAN and remaining World Cup qualifiers.
“In the long term we aim to establish ourselves as one of the top teams on the continent and world at large by, among other things, scouting and developing world class players that can compete at bigger stages.
”I am committed to working closely with all stakeholders to ensure that we all work towards the common goals,” he said, adding that he has been in Malawi for some years now, and knows the culture and what Malawian players need — which gives him an advantage.
Should he be given the benefit of doubt — YES, his target is to qualify for the AfCON 2027 and he should be supported through every other available means, which several stakeholders are assisting by strengthening the country’s domestic league — as seen recently by NBS Bank through the K982 million National Division League and National Bank of Malawi through its K1 billion investment into women’s game and district football structures.
Unveiled last Wednesday, FAM president, Haiya applauded National Bank for choosing football as a tool for community transformation across Malawi, adding that the historic investment also aligns with FAM’s strategic plan that is targeting women’s and rural football.
“These are the areas that most of corporates they didn’t want to sponsor, but today NBM has come and rescue us,” he is quoted as saying by FAM Media. “This speaks volumes, and we believe that with this sponsorship, our transformative agenda is to be realised.”
Haiya also referred to the association’s strategic plan which indicates that for partners or sponsors to trust FAM, “the first thing that we have to do is to take a path that is very transparent in our dealings and we have also to be accountable — no wonder we are having more sponsors coming because of the path that we took”.
“The are more sponsors which are going to come, we are going to continue to live by our values of being accountable, transparent and inclusivity is also part of the game whereby we are saying we should not leave a girl child behind but it has to be balanced,” he said.
NBM’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Harold Jiya said they decided to invest into women’s football to facilitate inclusion since concentration is mostly on sponsoring men’s football.
“This is in line with our beliefs that women’s shouldn’t be spared,” he said. “We want to ensure that they have equipment that is required. These ladies should be models for young ones, and young girls should be busy so that their minds are fired up in physical activities.
“We are sponsoring the game because a lot of people love football as it helps to unite. It helps to get meaningful change and attitude. We decided to sponsor so that we build the future of our athletes in Malawi.”
National teams’ participation in international competitions require a lot of financial resources and for them to be very competitive, they need to play regularly including utilising FIFA open windows for international friendly games as a chance to gain exposure.
The stronger the Flames are, the better the chances would be to attract interest of African football giants to play friendlies with — even those outside this continent.
So, the more support FAM gets towards Flames’ assignments, like the case of FDH Bank, the more chances would be for the team to be accorded with strength-testing matches against stronger opponents using the FIFA window for international friendlies.
That way all stakeholders are also tasked with the target that FAM set for Pasuwa to qualify for the AfCON 2027 — the journey he has already started through the final two AfCON 2025 qualifiers; two FIFA World Cup 2026™ qualifiers; the four games in the CHAN 2025 qualifiers and the three at the COSAFA Cup 2025.
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Pasuwa’s defence in nine competitive games his team have played, has conceded 7 goals — 0-1 loss against Namibia; 0-2 loss to Tunisia (both in FIFA World Cup); two against South Africa in CHAN; and one each against Lesotho and Angola at the COSAFA Cup 2025 — against scoring seven (3-0 v Burkina Faso and 4-0 aggregate v Comoros).
This is what Pasuwa alluded to that they have to go back to the drawing board for ahead of the AfCON 2027 qualifiers as most of these goals were conceded from set pieces and some due to lapse in concentration deep into the games — while the midfield, which controls perfect ball possession, are not supportive enough to feed the forwards and fail to get into the box in numbers.
The former Zimbabwe Warriors mentor has a lot to offer to make Malawi a force to reckon with and in February, he declared: “I have been in these shoes before with Zimbabwe and we qualified to AfCON in 2017 and it is my hope that if we work together, we can achieve the target of going to AfCON 2027.”
Pasuwa had a whirlwind six-year stint with Nyasa Bullets in which he led the People’s Team to an unprecedented five TNM Super League titles (2018, 2019, 2020-21, 2022 and 2023).
In 2023, he completed it with a historical quadruple of titles — the FDH Bank Cup, the inaugural Castel Challenge Cup, the Airtel Top 8 and the TNM Super League — that earned the Zimbabwean the Non-Citizen of the Year accolade a recognition in the Malawi Sport Award 2023.
